'All she wants for Christmas is her two front teeth...'

"Sister Susie sitting on a thistle...". If Annie had the ability to say that she would, because (drum roll please)..........she has the nubs of two front teeth...finally. So, our little girl is indeed getting her two front teeth for Christmas. How appropriate.

Nick's Imitation

For those of you who don't know, this is my brother Nick...he's doing his Annie imitation. He swears she never looks at the camera, and in looking back at many of my pictures of her- I must admit, he's right. Nick, you crack me up....

Annie's Art

While there are many facets to my ever evolving toddler parenting philosophy, one of my ground rules is to never show the child how to do something that I don't want her knowing how to do....quite simple one would think. Well, apparently my co-partner in this whole thing doesn't subscribe to the same tenet...or perhaps merely forgets these rules from time to time. Poor little Annie had her first experience with a stomach bug this morning, so by the time this afternoon rolled around she was quite bored with anything I could come up with to do. Now while I already knew about Josh's parenting short comings in this area, today was this fact was made quite clear when he explained to Annie, who is now 17 1/2 months old...and I quote..."No Annie, we don't draw on furniture- only on paper and skin..." what the? skin? since when?? Here's evidence...

New Elliott Pictures

Sisters

Elliott's 2 months old!!

Buba

For those of you who know Annie, she has this bunny that somehow has been named "BunBun", "Buba" according to her, she can't quite say BunBun as of yet- regardless, she is quite attached- so much so that several months ago we decided to order another one of these special bunnies so that we could wash one without her having to go without. Up until now we've been quite careful to never let BunBun #1 be in close vicinity of BunBun #2...one can surely can see where this is going...

Annie loves to help me do the laundry, so there we were the day before we left for Thanksgiving, standing in front of the washer and all the sudden I realized that #2 was in there!! Blimie! I distracted her, quickly chucked the bunny into the dryer and slammed the door shut- thinking to myself all the while that I was safe. Nope. As we started the dryer all the sudden I hear her shrieking, "Buba, Buba, Buba....". I look at Annie and she has this look of absolute horror on her face and just keeps repeating the poor bunny's name. At that moment I notice that at the very front of our front facing dryer is #2, flopping in circles with each rotation. Foiled!! She still is saying, "Buba, Buba, Buba, Buba..." with that terrible look on her face when I notice that #1 is lying on the floor in the kitchen. I diverted her attention to this one and we quickly left for a walk- all the while I'm hoping that she would forget the whole debacle. Apparently not. Later that afternoon we're back in the laundry room and even though the dryer had since been emptied, she places both hands and her nose on the window of the dryer and starts in with her mantra again, "Buba, Buba, Buba".

So, now we're back from Thanksgiving and I think the whole thing is behind us until today. #1 was in the laundry and she had #2 in her possession. But, somehow #1- the one that was supposedly in the laundry basket- made it out and they were reunited in the middle of the kitchen floor. I wish I could have gotten a picture of the look on Annie's face, it was as if she was having this slow motion out of body experience as she stood there taking in the situation. "Buba, Buba, Buba....", was all the poor child could say. I swiped up one of them and tossed it into the laundry room, but she clearly was not going to fall for it. So this leaves me wondering, do we just unabashedly disclose both BunBuns or do we continue this sloppy charade?....I'm so ashamed. Any suggestions? I'd love to hear them...